[layman]

<the Fourth Amendment actually provides vital protection to all Americans, not just "criminals."

I only read this far and stopped because it occurred to me that if our constitution provides vital protection to criminals, then WTF? I think the founding fathers intended vital protection for law abiding citizens but not for criminals.

[supercat]

I only read this far and stopped because it occurred to me that if our constitution provides vital protection to criminals, then WTF? I think the founding fathers intended vital protection for law abiding citizens but not for criminals.

The Fourth Amendment protections apply to all free persons. Honoring the Fourth Amendment will sometimes increase the difficulty of catching crooks, but it will seldom pose an insurmountable obstacle to enforcement of reasonable laws. Unfortunately, the War on Drugs has been used to shred the Fourth Amendment almost beyond recognition.